Contents

Description

The first structures (from the left, in the front) are the Painted Ladies, Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings repainted, starting in the 1960s, in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The most famous "Painted Ladies" are the buildings at 710-720 Steiner St, which have been used in multimedia such as Full House.

The first structure (from the left, in the back) is a 52-story 779 ft (237 m) skyscraper. It is the fourth tallest building in San Francisco, the largest by floor area, and a focal point of the Financial District. It is the 75th tallest building in the United States (upon completion), one foot taller than One Worldwide Plaza in New York City and just 1 foot shorter than the 68th tallest building in the USA, which is also owned by Bank of America, the Bank of America Center in Houston, Texas at 780 ft (238 m), and just 2 feet shorter than the 67th tallest building in the USA, 30 Hudson Street in Jersey City, New Jersey at 781 ft (238 m).

The second structure is the Transamerica Pyramid, which is a 48-story futurist building and the second-tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline. Its height is surpassed by Salesforce Tower. The building no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, which moved its U.S. headquarters to Baltimore, Maryland, but it is still associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo. Designed by architect William Pereira and built by Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction Company, at 853 feet (260 m), on completion in 1972, it was the eighth-tallest building in the world.

The third structure is the Salesforce Tower, a 1,070-foot (326 m) office skyscraper in the South of Market district of downtown San Francisco. It is located at 415 Mission Street between First and Fremont Streets, next to the Transbay Transit Center site. Salesforce Tower is the centerpiece of the San Francisco Transbay redevelopment plan. The plan contains a mix of office, transportation, retail, and residential uses. Upon its completion in 2018, it became the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline, with a top roof height of 970 feet (296 m) and overall height of 1,070 feet (326 m), surpassing the 853 feet (260 m) Transamerica Pyramid. It is also the second-tallest building west of the Mississippi River after the 1,100 feet (335 m) Wilshire Grand Center in Los Angeles, though the Salesforce Tower is taller when Wilshire Grand Center's decorative spire is excluded.

To the right of the Salesforce Tower is the Golden Gate Bridge, a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide (1.6 km) strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The structure links the American city of San Francisco, California – the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula – to Marin County, carrying both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1 across the strait. The bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Under the Golden Gate Bridge is Alcatraz Island, located in San Francisco Bay, 1.25 miles (2.01 km) offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. The small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison (1828), and a federal prison from 1934 until 1963. Beginning in November 1969, the island was occupied for more than 19 months by a group of Native Americans from San Francisco, who were part of a wave of Native activism across the nation, with public protests through the 1970s. In 1972, Alcatraz became part of a national recreation area and received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Background

San Francisco officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area (9.7 million residents).

As of 2017, it was the seventh-highest income county in the United States, with a per capita personal income of $119,868, meaning that the average San Francisco household earned over $280,000. As of 2015, San Francisco proper had a GDP of $154 billion, and a GDP per capita of ~$178,000. The San Francisco CSA was the country's third-largest urban economy as of 2017, with a GDP of $907 billion. Of the 500+ primary statistical areas in the US, the San Francisco CSA had among the highest GDP per capita in 2017, at $93,938. San Francisco was ranked 14th in the world and third in the United States on the Global Financial Centres Index as of September 2018.

San Francisco was founded on June 29, 1776, when colonists from Spain established Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, all named for St. Francis of Assisi. The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. San Francisco's status as the West Coast's largest city peaked between 1870 and 1900, when around 25% of California's population resided in the city proper. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a major port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. It then became the birthplace of the United Nations in 1945. After the war, the confluence of returning servicemen, significant immigration, liberalizing attitudes, along with the rise of the "hippie" counterculture, the Sexual Revolution, the Peace Movement growing from opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War, and other factors led to the Summer of Love and the gay rights movement, cementing San Francisco as a center of liberal activism in the United States. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines.

A popular tourist destination, San Francisco is known for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills, eclectic mix of architecture, and landmarks, including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Fisherman's Wharf, and its Chinatown district. San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co., Gap Inc., Fitbit, Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Square, Inc., Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, Craigslist, and Weather Underground. It is home to a number of educational and cultural institutions, such as the University of San Francisco (USF), University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco State University (SFSU), the De Young Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the California Academy of Sciences.

LEGO.com Description

Recreate the magnificence of San Francisco’s architecture with this awesome 21043 LEGO® Architecture Skyline Collection model. This LEGO brick collectible features iconic San Francisco attractions and landmarks, including the city’s famous “painted ladies” buildings, 555 California Street, the Transamerica Pyramid, Salesforce Tower, Coit Tower, Fort Point, Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. A blue-tiled baseplate representing the Golden Gate strait and a San Francisco nameplate add the finishing touch to this amazing model. LEGO Architecture Skyline Collection models are perfect for display in the home or office and have been developed for all with an interest in travel, architectural culture, history and design. Each skyline building set is scaled to give an accurate representation of the comparative size of the featured structures, with realistic color depiction.

Also features a blue-tiled baseplate depicting the Golden Gate strait.

The included booklet contains information about the designer, architecture and history of each attraction, as well as historical facts about San Francisco and its architectural heritage. (English language only. Other languages available for download at LEGO.com/architecture.)

Includes a 4x34 tiled base with a decorative San Francisco nameplate.

Recreate the world's most vibrant cities with the LEGO® Architecture Skyline Collection.

LEGO® Architecture sets celebrate the world of architecture through the medium of the LEGO brick, and are developed for all with an interest in travel, design, architecture and history.

This set includes over 629 pieces.

Measures over 6” (16cm) high, 11” (28cm) wide and 2” (7cm) deep.

Notes

The set is part of the Skylines subtheme of Architecture. It is part of two released in 2019, and the fourth American city to be released as a Skyline.

The set is the first Californian city to be released as a Skyline set.